Fuel station fire sparks bomb fears in Abuja

There was pandemonium yesterday in Abuja following the outbreak of fire when two fuel tanker trucks exploded during rush hour while discharging their products at two different filling stations in Abuja.Panicked passers-by fled both scenes but police and rescue officials said the two explosions bore no signs of sabotage.Fire fighters sprayed down the burning remains of the tankers with foam to keep the flames from spreading. Plumes of smoke drifted over the city.One tanker exploded at a gas station in the Wuse neighborhood, while the other caught fire near a gas station on a busy street in Abuja's Garki 2 neighborhood, witnesses said.The first inferno, according to a witness, Rejoice Ononye, was caused by an electrical spark while the driver was discharging the fuel which made the tanker to explode.He said that an assistant to the driver was seriously injured and rushed to the hospital while the tanker driver escaped unhurt.Speaking on the incidence, the Operations Manager, FCT National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Labaran Ahmed, said they got information that there was an explosion at ASCON Filling Station besides AP Plaza but on verification, they discovered that it was not an explosion but a petrol tanker that went up in flames.'A tanker was discharging fuel when there was a spark between the battery and the tank and it then caught fire. The driver was brave; he moved the tanker out of the filling station. His boy was actually affected and he has been taken to the hospital by our men,' he said.He said that his men and those of the Federal Fire Service were on ground on time to mitigate the effect of the fire, adding that two personal vehicles that were parked within the vicinity were burnt.NEMA spokesman, Yushau Shuaib, also denied the insinuation that the inferno was caused by a bomb blast. He stated this in text message he sent to Daily Trust.According to driver, he had discharged the first and second batches of the fuel and was about to discharge the third batch when the incident occurred.Our reporter observed that it took men of the Federal Fire Service over an hour to put out the fire.The scene of the incident was cordoned off with large crowd of onlookers lurking around the area.http://www.youtube.com/watch'v=nLB1Bgvasjw
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